Lazaros
Petromelides applied for the status of conscientious objector in 1998. He
was accepted, and called up for a substitute service 7.5 times longer than
the military service he would have had to serve (30 months of substitute
service instead of 4 months of military service). As a conscientious
objector, the length of his substitute service was calculated based on the
full time of military service, although he only would have had to serve 4
months instead of 18 months due to his age and the fact that he is the
father of a child (see http://wri-irg.org/news/htdocs/18092002a.html).

Lazaros
Petromelides refused to accept this, and did not start his substitute
service. He was arrested in April 1999 and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
In June 1999 the military appeal court released him on bail, and postponed
a decision due to promised changes of the Greek law on conscientious
objection.

Petromelides
was finally sentenced to 20 months in prison on 12 June 2003, but the
sentence was suspended.

However,
shortly after his release on bail in June 1999 Lazaros Petromelides was
again called up for military service (as he refused to begin his
substitute service, his CO status was revoked), which he refused. A new
arrest warrant was issued for "insubordination".

Lazaros
Petromelides now again faces trial, on 18 September 2003, at the Navy
Martial Court of Thessaloniki. This second trial for what is basically the
same "offence" - refusing to bear arms - is in breach of the
European Convention of Human Rights, and against UN Commission on Human
Rights Resolution 2002/45, which states that states should refrain from
using the judicial system to force conscientious objectors to change their
convictions.

War
Resisters' International calls on Greece to respect the right to
conscientious objection according to international human rights standards,
and to immediately stop proceedings against Lazaros Petromelides.